Denis Villeneuve’s Dune

I have to admit to feeling a bit ambushed in the cinema. I went into the film not knowing anything other then what the trailers showed and who the director was and was fairly excited but also very interested on how they were going to tackle the source material this time.

So I actually swore in the cinema when the title came up and out of nowhere "part 1"

I am not against the film being intentional split

I am happy they are directly adapting more of the material and so on.

But I do feel genuinely ambushed in that the part 1 subtitle is in none of the advertising or posters or anything.

If I knew going in I would have been fine, if the film had advertised itself accordingly.

But psyching myself up for what is a fairly long film and then finding that a lot of what I was expecting is not going to be in this film (further sin to the film's advertising they abused Paul's visions quite a bit in the trailer to sell more of the events of the latter half of the story in the film)

Film itself was fine, visually great and great sense of scale and other wordly. But still my first thought out of the film was "I was tricked!" I enjoyed the trick but still f*ck you Warner Bros.

The meeting between the emperor and the guild never happened in the book if that's the scene you are talking about

Saw it earlier. Had it hyped up beyond belief in my mind for the past year.

overall, it’s ok...average. There’s a lot of filler/boring scenes that could’ve been done away with.

the look of the film is good, the sand worms and technology looked the part

yer man the head of the Arkonon family was proper macabre and Dave Bautista was very scary ...

thought timmy Chalamet was ok but not very believable in terms of being a warrior - he’s like a fcekin twiglet.

brolin was v good too when he was teaching chalamet to knife fight

On the other hand a good few ppl walked out which is never a good sign

7/10 from this non-book reader. I respected it more than I loved it.

Production-wise, everything is operating at the highest level - sets, sound design, production design. And there's about an hour or so of fantastic set pieces following a very drawn-out opening hour. But overall, it's so uninvolving and lacks any energy or magic. I'll probably watch the sequel but wouldn't be rushing out to it. Bottom-line, did the movie make me care enough about its characters? Not so much.

Man that sucks. I'm lucky working shifts that I can pick the quieter times

My opinion of this movie seems to be against the general consensus. There is no denying that the visuals are spectacular but the movie as a whole left me cold. I never really got invested in the story and the characters to me just seemed quite boring.

I enjoyed that immensely and "immense" is the right word. My God it looked huge. The scale of the ships and scenery. The overall design of everything. From the very start when the Emperor's herald descends the ramp to, of course, the worms.

The casting was spot on (As we knew it would be). I was initially on the fence about Chalmet for Paul. Simply because I haven't seen much of him. I think the only thing I remember him in is as a young Casey Afleck in Interstellar (The resemblance was so striking that I knew his grown up character would be played by Afleck). I thought he would be too weak. But, as I thought more about it leading up, I thought, yeah, he's royalty on a cushy planet (Caladin) but with combat (And Bene Geserit) training so, he wouldn't exactly be pampered and preened but he also wouldn't be a hard-a$$. So it made sense. But thankfully, he was great. And, as everyone online is saying, Ferguson was fantastic too.

It has been years since I reread the book (My first time was over 30 years ago) and changes need to be made for the sake of timing and shaking up some of the casting a bit (I believe the people complaining about gender swapping Dr Leit Keynes shut up when they saw how fantastic the actor was). So it has been some years since I reread the book so I'm not sure how huch it diverges from the book but I'm OK with that: Adaptations are that - Adaptations - They will rarely be literal transpositions.

So I really liked that. Hope it makes as much money as possible given the current situation of piracy, Covid, TV release in the US etc. As someone has said, they need to be in the desert filming NOW (Initially I thought they were filming part 1 & 2 in one go. Was disappointed when I heard about 2 months ago that that was not the case).

Second film will be tough though.

Just thinking back on my first viewing of Dune yesterday

although it’s ok for what it is, I would’ve preferred if it had taken a trippier, more surreal, other worldly type of vibe.

we hardly got any sense of what the Spice (melange) does psychoactively for example.

Have you ever watched the documentary about the failed Dune project by director Alejandro Jodorowsky?

Artwork and design by Moebius, Salvador Dali as The Emporer, would have been insanely trippy and surreal.

On the psychoactive aspects of spice. Yes the effects of foldspace, trippy navigators and crazy Water of Life ceremonies weren't touched on (though I do think the latter will be a part of 2nd movie, I mean it HAS to be right?)

I do think what Villeneuve has driven home in his handling of Spice so far, is its psychoactive effect on Paul. It places the effect on him at the centre of the story, rather than its necessity to the Universe and it's ubiquity as a means of longevity and mind expansion.

2 instances in particular, the sandcrawler scene, and the tent scene. The effects of the spice upon Paul are immediate and the presence of spice in the air is highlighted by a sort of sparkly homage to the Dredd broken glass scene on Slo-Mo.

Sound and visuals are incredible. As good as it gets.

The movie is a total snoozefest though.

Part 2 is a go

https://twitter.com/legendary/status/1453058884516466691?s=21

https://deadline.com/2021/10/dune-sequel-greenlit-by-legendary-warner-bros-theatrical-release-1234862383/

Has it done big money box office?

Early days. Decent enough scores on the reviews websites but then the A- cinemascore.. that felt like a big win since it's cinema audience.. still though.. early days.

In the tent with Jessica he had full on spice fuelled prescient vision.

The 1st encounter with spice is IMO framed to show the immediate overwhelming impact it has on him, and his sensitivity to it.

All of which is very pertinent to Paul's journey with the fremen.

To nit pick I think to importance of water on Arakas was more underplayed.

Saw this on Monday on a big screen with good sound and it was a wonderful cinematic experience (which was a nice welcome back after 18 months). I had high expectations and they were met on pretty much all fronts. You know you're going to great imagery from Villeneuve but he has kicked on here in creating a complementary epic soundscape - I thought the use of sound and music just about overcame the fact that the soundtrack is, well, a little Hans Zimmery. He's overexposed at this stage, me thinks. Strong performances from the main cast members with Rebecca Ferguson really standing out. If anything, I think the film could have handled another few scenes in the first hour to flesh out a couple of the household characters and their relationships a bit more and maybe a bit more of the politics but I suppose the fact that the 2.5 hour running time flew by is a sign of good editing. And we were spared Josh Brolin singing.

I'm officially a Villeneuve fanboy at this stage. His last four films are crowding the upper reaches of my top ten for the last decade.

Delighted Part 2 is confirmed. Sting as emperor? You just know someone in WB is gonna suggest it!

Well, you got to remember, this is simply part one. I'm trying not to give anything away but you have to remember, so far, Paul has had little exposure to Spice and they have been living in the Tyrell building... I mean, palace with access to water etc. I have confidence that they will delve into that later to a greater degree. As for the trippiness of the Spice visions, I liked what they have done so far. Very in keeping with Villneuve's style. I don't want to see lava-lamp blobs and tie-dyed backgrounds and sitar music :)

So really you have to remember:

Thats exactly how i plan on watching it TV wise. One question how are you accessing HBO max using a VPN i presume?